This week, an explosive story broke in the news about how dozens of wealthy parents have been paying certain “educational consultants” (who, in turn, were paying off university athletic coaches and academic test administrators, among others) to get their children into prestigious universities. Many high-profile individuals were named in the scandal, including Hollywood actors and business leaders in Canada and the US.
The various scams involved for getting these children accepted into elite schools included bribing coaches to say that the kids were top-rated athletes when they weren’t; bribing proctors at academic exam centers to alter test results; having ringers actually take the exams for the students, and getting the students listed as disabled so that they’d have more time to write the entrance exams and possibly having someone coming in to help them with the tests.
The main consultant involved in this scandal, Mr. William Rick Singer, said in his deposition that he could guarantee these families a “side door” entry into select universities, and numerous wealthy parents were only too willing to pay him big bucks for the service. His take totaled over 25 million dollars, in the years between 2011 and 2018 alone.
How kids react to this type of helicopter parenting.
When parents pay to get their kids into college, there are a few ways that it can affect the young people. The kids might have no knowledge of what happened, but they’ll subsequently have an inflated sense of their abilities and an incorrect assessment of how much work they need to put in to obtain a certain result.
For example, if the young person studied 10 hours for a test and got a falsely high score (because their parents paid to have it altered), the young person will assume that this amount of studying in the future should result in equally good scores. This can quickly set them up for failure as well as a deep sense of confusion
If the young person is aware of what was done on their behalf, it can lead to them feeling diminished. They can start to think that their parents paid for their college entry because Mom and Dad didn’t believe that their child was able to compete on their own merit. It could undermine the young person’s self-confidence as well as their ability to trust their parents.
Some kids might have been so constantly and consistently coddled by parents who did everything for them that they’ve grown up expecting the same treatment when it came to getting into college. Their parents buying them a spot would be par for the course, as they grew up assuming that their parents could and would buy them whatever they wanted.
These kids are likely to grow up with an extremely distorted attitude about how to achieve their goals. Whereas most of us succeed through a combination of innate ability and consistent hard work, these overly-spoiled kids will ignore the requirements of merit and go straight to paying for everything they require in life.
People have been “buying” an education for decades.
Around forty years ago, a friend of my family was a grad student at a prestigious Canadian university. While he was completing his PhD, he was approached by a wealthy young man in the graduate program who wanted to hire him to “edit” his Master’s thesis.
It turned out that the young man wanted more than an editing job; he wanted our family friend to write the entire thesis and he was willing to pay a lot of money for the service. Our family friend refused the request, but he was somewhat shocked at the young man’s brazenness.
Even four decades ago, wealthy people had no problems with purchasing a high-quality university degree. It makes me wonder what kind of parents this wealthy young man had, and whether or not he learned his dishonest behavior from them.
Today in the 21st century, with helicopter parenting being a rampant problem, I wonder about well-to-do parents and just how far they’re willing to go for their kids. I wonder what the limit is on their actions, especially in the light of this current scandal.
It scares me to think that when an informal poll was taken recently, asking parents whether they’d break the law to get their kids into a prestigious college, 50% of them said that they would. Where are as a society that this is acceptable to so many of us, today?
Too many helicopter parents these days are living vicariously through their kids. They want their kids to be superstars. In part, I think, it’s because they want to be able to brag about their kids to make them feel better as people and to look better as parents.
Extremely wealthy people are used to buying their children’s way into universities. For those few ultra-rich families, all they have to do is endow a building or a scholarship and automatically, their kids are admitted into an Ivy League school.
The problem arises with families that are rich, but not buying-a-building rich. These families, it seems, must resort to other means to get their kids accepted into elite schools and for some, this includes bribery and cheating.
Money will never be able to purchase character.
Money buys a lot in life but one thing it doesn’t buy is good character; it doesn’t buy a good work ethic, resilience or grit, either. Parents who purchase opportunities for their kids are just an extreme form of helicopter parents who are ultimately going to cripple their kids. Their kids will grow up not knowing how to stand on their own two feet, deal with disappointment or failure, or rally when they meet any obstacles.
Buy throwing money at every problem that might arise, these parents are making it impossible for their kids to understand the association between putting in effort and obtaining a positive result.
These kids who have everything bought and paid for will never learn how to cope with challenges or bounce back from adversity. Because ever fall will be cushioned and every challenge smoothed away, they’ll be incapable of recognizing their own strengths or learning from their mistakes. This is further evidence of how detrimental helicopter parenting is to the psyches of young people.
I remember watching an episode of The Sopranos in which Carmella Soprano wanted her daughter Meadow to attend an elite university. When she couldn’t get Meadow accepted on merit, Carmella ended up threatening the dean of the university and Meadow was subsequently accepted into the school.
This TV show is a sad reflection on modern life. Money (or in Mrs. Soprano’s case, power) opens doors. Money and clout offer many advantages. But being a helicopter parent and throwing money (or threats) at every problem your children might encounter isn’t good for them.
Helicopter parenting will inevitably hurt your children.
Helicopter parenting undermines a kid’s ability to become a functional human being. The children of helicopter parents become more and more helpless and more and more dependent on their folks to solve all their problems.
Jack Buckingham, whose mother Jane was charged in the college scandal, released a statement the other day, saying that he was ”upset that I was unknowingly involved in a large scheme that helps give kids who may not work as hard as others an advantage over those who truly deserve those spots.”
Buckingham added that he was hopeful that the scandal “might help finally cut down on money and wealth being such a heavy factor in college admissions. Instead, I hope colleges may prioritize [looking at] an applicant’s character, intellect, and other qualities over everything else.”
Although this young man is obviously filled with remorse over his mother’s actions on his behalf, it was a relief to hear such a statement from one of the young people involved and it gives me hope that not all of these children will be thoroughly messed up by their parents’ well-intentioned but wrong-headed meddling.
The scandal, (named “Varsity Blues” by the criminal investigators) raises a whole lot of questions. One thing I’m sure of, however, is that any type of helicopter parenting is doing absolutely no favors to our kids.
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